Nearly a thousand feet of Cotswold scarp drops steeply, then gently, to the vale of the lower Severn, hindered here and there by the outliers of Peaked Down, Cam Long Down and Smallpox Hill.  From these limestone summits can be seen the distant Black Mountains, the Sugarloaf and the peaked top of Pen-y-Fan in the south Welsh massif.  The estuary waters of the mighty River Severn glint and glow, a remnant of turquoise seas that anciently surged, lapped, caressed, at the foot of the Edge; where once were bays and inlets there are now the combes of the secret Cotswolds.  On this steep, scarp edge, walking is difficult, for the Edge, the western limit of the Cotswold Hills, is my hunting ground.  Here, in the lush, limestone woods of ash, beech and sycamore, I hunt for heron, egret, otter, mole, bat, eel, owl and grebe, searching carefully for my quarry. 

I hunt at all times of the year - but June is the best, when the wild parsley fades into  May, the  scarp-slope woods develop their under storey of hazel, dogwood, guelder, briar and bramble which nuzzle up to saplings of ash and sycamore.  This under storey cloaks the deer runs, which enable me to creep beneath this grey-green duvet of foliage.  It is a secret world of chiming bullfinches, the worried whining of chiff-chaffs, and the harsh sneering of jays.  In the stillness of this luxuriant lower storey, mobs of roe deer strain to make sense of what I am, this human in camouflage, before their nerve breaks and they hurriedly make off through glistening, sunlit pools of ivy.  I have to stop, listen and wait - almost becoming wild myself...

Many have hunted here long before me, for this western Cotswold edge has sheltered peoples since Palaeolithic times.  They were lowland types, and it was not until the Mesolithics arrived from across the swamp of what we now call the North Sea, that these Cotswold forests were first settled.  These were the Forest Folk, the Maglemosians, with their flint axes.  And the Edge has physical remnants of those who followed, people from settlements in Wales and Cornwall, arriving possibly, on the Severn itself, searching out new grazing for their stock, on top of the scarp. These are the ancients in whose footprints I follow, with my own tools of fine steel, using the walkways they used of old, the majestic beeches cloaking and protecting, their summits ringing with the calls of buzzards and jackdaws.

When an ash key sets on this scarp, it must first of all germinate and begin to grow.  As it develops, many seasons of leaf mould will accumulate over the growing seedling, forcing it to develop further away from the slope of the scarp, lengthening the root growth before the sapling is able to grow up vertically; for in essence my Ramblerstick grows itself: all I have to do is find it.  It is this root growth which will determine what creature I take home from my search, the form and amount of root growth determining what animal I can fashion from it, giving my walking sticks their unique, one-piece finish.  Being straight is also the key.  It is a straight, young tree of the correct thickness that I need: not quite a needle in a haystack but two good walking sticks from a day's searching and I am happy!

The exciting moment then is when soil and leaf-mould are cleared away from the root, revealing possible treasure.  And what creature will I take home?  Heron, snake, gull, swan...  The ancient woods will yield up their treasure, rewarding my painstaking hunt through groves of grey-green ash and tobacco-brown sycamore.

Ash is the wood I most often use for my Ramblerstick . It is abundant and tight-grained, white or cream-coloured, excellent for carving and applying colour and varnish. The bark is soft grey-green. 

It is unusual for my walking sticks to be without a blemish or two; indeed, they can enhance the finished product.  Most blemishing is caused by wandering roe deer biting at the bark as they pass; rabbits nibble nearer to the ground. Twists and spirals are extremely rare to find in the wild, caused by the growth of honeysuckle, but are real gems!

I begin to work the walking stick as soon as practically possible after cutting, when I remove the bark at the handle and roughly shape the raw wood. It is then left to dry somewhat, but not too dry, as I prefer the wood to season as it is worked.  I use British wild animals and birds as my subjects, which are genuinely hand carved, painted with artist's quality watercolours and detailed with glass eyes, before the whole walking stick has a minimum of three coats of UV varnish and finished with metal safety tip.

When you purchase a genuine Jake King Ramblerstick, you will have acquired a unique item, for no two walking sticks can ever be the same.  These are fine quality, all-in-one walking sticks which, with correct care, will never lose their value.